About Harry...

Artist’s Statement:

As an art student in the 1960s I was taught that all art is abstract. Through the organization of the basic language, the elements, the components of our medium we either succeed or fail. Thus, even as we see the ease with which dancers move as if one with music, they are listening, counting, remembering the many rehearsals and past mistakes not to be repeated. While what we see are smiling dancers, they are aware of the blueprint or structure that holds the piece together and makes it function as a work of art.

Color, composition, light and shadow, mood, surface, edges, texture and depth are a few of the elements considered in a painting. Subject matter is an optional story line, but it comes with a lot of history, a lot of baggage. Even though my Abstract Expressionist teachers discouraged subject matter, we developed our basic skills though endless figure drawing and still life painting. It was not until the 1980s that I dared to draw and paint something as “banal” as the landscape as seen. It fit me so well that I have been painting it ever since.

These themes of nature and the transience of man in nature are the focus of most of my works. Living on my farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York State provides me with endless inspiration for my paintings, drawings and prints. The mood, the spirit of this land and its seasons, not just a particular moment in time but the history perceived yet unseen that gives us a sense of place—this is what I want my work to evoke.

As you look at these familiar places, so “Upstate New York” I just want to call your attention to those worried, counting dancers, music reading and baton watching musicians and gaffing tape conscious actors because we visual artists are watching and counting too…hopefully way, way back in our cortex somewhere!

About the Artist:

Harry McCue received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in 1967 and his Master of Fine Arts Degree in painting and printmaking from the University of Colorado in 1969. He began his college teaching career that same year at SUNY Geneseo. In 1973 he accepted a position to begin a printmaking department at Ithaca College, eventually retiring in 2010. He served as Chairperson of the Art Department for 33 years. McCue's drawings, prints and paintings have been widely exhibited in solo, juried and group shows nationally, and are included in numerous collections, including the permanent collections of the New York State Maritime Museum in Fort Schuyler, New York; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; and the University of Maine at Presque Island. He has been listed in Who's Who in American Art and Marquis’ Who’s Who since the mid ‘80s. In 2004 four of McCue's paintings were selected by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for display in her office at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. They remained on display there until her new posting to the State Department.

HONORS AND AWARDS2007 Visiting Artist/Guest Lecturer, Rochester Memorial Art Gallery Rochester, NYat the University of Rochester2007 Print “spangled Hamburg” purchased for President of the Association ofCollege and University Museums and Galleries’ collection2007 Antique Fire Apparatus restored by me was chosen as the cover piece for thededication of a new museum for the Lodi Historical Society andwas chosen as the symbol for their logo and invitations2001-2005 Four paintings selected for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office Washington, DCin Russell Senate Office Building2003 Wm. H. Davis Award for “Winter Day with Haystack,” HUB Robeson State College, PAGallery, University of Pennsylvania1996 Consultant for proposed feature-length movie, “Robert and Patty” byMary Harron, Director of “I Shot Andy Warhol”1994 Selected by Dean as one of twenty to receive “Particularly Meritorious Faculty Ithaca, NYAward, School of Humanities & Sciences, Ithaca College1994 Featured Artist, Visiting Studio Tour, Johnson Museum, Cornell University Ithaca, NY1984 Recipient, Lodestar Grant for “Collaboration in the Creative Process”1980 Featured Artist, “Focus on Art” television show Ithaca, NY

BIOGRAPHIES2001-present Biographed, Marquis’ Who’s Who in America2000 Biographed, Marquis’ Who’s Who in America, Millennial Edition1998 Biographed, Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World1995 Biographed, Morrisrow, P., Robert Mapplethorpe, Random House, New York, NY1993-2010 Biographed, Marquis’ Who’s Who in American Education, New Providence, NJ1991 Biographed, Who’s Who in American Education, National Reference Institute, Wilmette, Il1986-1993, 1998 Biographed, Marquis’ Who’s Who in the East, 21st – 24th Editions to CurrentBiographed, Who’s Who in American Art, 17th EditionBiographed, New York Art Review, 3rd Edition, including article, critical essay,color and black and white reproductions1985 Biographed, American Historical Supply Catalog, 1st Edition, Wellikof